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The Trinity River toll road would run along the eastern levee just west of downtown Dallas. DMN file photo.

State Rep. Rafael Anchia wants to know what you think of plans for the Trinity River toll road. The Dallas Democrat is circulating a survey gauging people’s opinions about the long-running and ever-controversial project. I’m awaiting word on what prompted the questionnaire — and what Anchia plans to do with it.

The move comes on the heels of the North Central Texas Council of Governmentsbacking off of plans to involve the state transportation department in financing the divisive road. NCTCOG transportation director Michael Morris has said the Texas Department of Transportation could be a part of the solution to find money for the road. But top state transportation officials said they want no part of it. As such, NCTCOG officials said this week they are stripping from their legislative agenda an item that would have sought legislative approval for TxDOT to find a private developer for the project.

That doesn’t mean the road is dead. Far from. The city and the North Texas Tollway Authority have a years-old contract to build the road. And NTTA already has the legal ability to find a private developer to help finance the $1.5 billion project. And NCTCOG’s transportation council last month agreed to put the road on a federal list of projects in need of private partners.

Meanwhile, a city attorney has said the contract between Dallas and NTTA is likely no longer enforceable. NTTA hasn’t sought a different opinion and says its inappropriate to comment on the project while federal authorities are deciding whether or not to approve it. But a majority of City Council members, including Mayor Mike Rawlings, support the project.

David Woo / The Dallas Morning News

Michael Morris, transportation director of Texas Council of Governments, was one of the guest speakers invited by the Stemmons Corridor Business Association to discuss the pros and cons of the Trinity Toll road during a luncheon in Dallas in October 2014.

Traffic could be headache on the southern end of the Dallas North Tollway this weekend as lanes will close in both directions for work on some bridges.

Expect major delays on the south end of the Dallas North Tollway this weekend. The North Texas Tollway Authority will close two lanes in each direction from 10 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. Two northbound right lanes will be closed from Wolf Street to Lemmon Avenue. Two southbound right lanes will be closed from Beverly Drive to Maple Avenue.

That means anyone who normally uses the toll road to get to Stars or Mavericks games should either leave way early, or plan an alternate route. And if that alternate route includes Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s Blue or Red lines, expect delays there, too, because that agency is suspending downtown train service to replace rails.

NTTA is replacing concrete on the DNT’s bridges over Lemmon Avenue and Maple Avenue/Knight Street. The agency plans more closures later in the month, but says the work should be complete by December.

When the turnpike authority closed its toll booths in December 2010, it installed cameras to take photos of drivers’ license plates and mailed bills to vehicle owners, [NTTA Spokesman Michael] Rey said. But until recently, the agency didn’t have records showing Oklahoma drivers’ home addresses, meaning they had no way of billing them.

Earlier this year, the turnpike authority acquired those records from the Oklahoma Tax Commission and began sending out invoices that had been stuck in the agency’s queue, he said.

So far, playing catch-up has garnered NTTA about $1.9 million from Oklahomans. Not that those drivers are all too happy about it.

Angela Hunt and Alex Krieger following the Harvard professor's apology for suggesting the "parkway" that has become the massive Trinity River toll road

Alex Krieger, urban design professor at Harvard and co-author of Dallas’ decade-old Balanced Vision Plan for the Trinity River, said Friday that a six-lane, nine-mile-long high-speed toll road between the levees is a very, very bad idea. And, speaking to an audience of city officials and policy-makers and architects, he apologized for having played a part in the plan that initially proposed a smaller, four-lane “parkway” that has ballooned into a $1.5-billion massive highway that would likely restrict access to the other amenities proposed in the 2003 plan.

Said Krieger to a hearty round of applause, the road Dallas City Hall has long been pushing for “would be detrimental to the Trinity corridor and probably would not serve traffic particularly well long-term in Dallas.”

Krieger was but one of several urban designers, traffic planners and engineers speaking during AIA Dallas’ daylong “Choices for a 21st Century Dallas: Connecting People and Opportunities” event held Friday at the Latino Cultural Center. Also on the list: Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments and longtime Trinity River toll road proponent; Dallas City Council member Lee Kleinman; Gail Thomas, president of the Trinity Trust; and Patrick Kennedy, who’s been pushing for the removal of Interstate 345 between Deep Ellum and downtown.

But Krieger’s appearance was perhaps the most anticipated, if only because of his role in proposing the parkway. And he began his remarks by offering an apology — “a sincere one,” he said — to the citizens of Dallas.

File photo

Then-Mayor Laura Miller at a January 2004 panel with Alex Krieger, at right, discussing the future of the Trinity River

“I feel I persuaded a number of people who were skeptical about any road within the Trinity River corridor that a particular kind of road might be a good thing for the Trinity,” he said. “I sill believe that. But that’s not what is transpiring a number of years later.” Said Krieger, he still believes in a slow-moving, four-lane road that provides access to the Trinity River park below. But that concept, he said, has morphed “into an idea I don’t think is very good.”

To anyone who’s been paying attention in recent years, Krieger’s comments aren’t particularly surprising. In May 2007 then-Dallas City Councilmember Angela Hunt, who was leading the anti-toll road referendum, turned up an email Krieger sent to then-Mayor Laura Miller in March of that year in which he said he was “concerned” that “the engineering of the road was proceeding as if it were a great big interstate highway instead of a parkway and that there was absolutely no evidence of concern for the ‘context sensitive design’ that was promised as part of the Balanced Vision Plan.”

But Krieger didn’t publicly voice his concerns, and didn’t stand beside Hunt as she fought city officials, including Miller and her successor, Tom Leppert, to kill the toll road. When asked after his presentation why he didn’t offer this public apology seven years ago — when, just maybe, he could have helped kill the expansive toll road — Krieger said only that he was “not really aware of” Hunt’s efforts against the toll road.

“That’s difficult to accept,” says Hunt. “But do I think he owes me an apology? No, I don’t. I do think he owes Dallas residents an apology, and I am glad he came to town and offered that. Part of me says this is seven years too late. … At the same time, I don’t think we should dismiss him, and I think we should appreciate the fact he did come to town.” Continue reading →

“Previously they were only available at Dallas Cowboys pro shops, either in-person or online,” says Michael Rey, spokesman for the North Texas Tollway Authority. “Now these TollTags can be purchased in-person at three NTTA TollTag stores” in Plano, Irving and Fort Worth.

The first 400 people to purchase the tags will receive an autographed photo of Cowboys great Drew Pearson. Rey notes that they have a limited supply, and only about half of the 20,000 TollTags remain.

The North Texas Tollway Authority on Wednesday agreed to foot a $900,000 bill to fix bridges built with improperly manufactured steel along the new Chisholm Trail Parkway.

The North Texas Tollway Authority this morning unanimously agreed to $900,000 to fix a bridge that staff members said a contractor poorly designed.

Steel beams for bridges on the new Chisholm Trail Parkway were not built strong enough, according to officials. The problem was discovered when the beams arrived at the project construction site.

Some affected portions of the new toll road in Tarrant and Johnson counties were fixed before they were opened. Other portions have not yet opened.

NTTA plans to recover the additional costs from its contractors.

Board members agreed to the expenditures without discussion this morning. But at a committee meeting earlier this month, they peppered staff members with questions about why the mistake wasn’t caught during the design process.

Assistant executive director of infrastructure Elizabeth Mow told board members earlier this month that the agency spot-checks about 10 percent of a project’s plans. She said NTTA relies on contractors’ engineers to certify the safety of their own designs.

Board members at that earlier meeting said they want to review how the agency oversees its contractors’ project designs.

The approval this morning for the additional $900,000 came in two votes. Those measures collectively included other expenses and had a total price tag of more than $1.8 million.

NTTA Chair Kenneth Barr abstained from voting on about $1.1 million of those expenses. He said he had a business relationship with one of the subcontractors involved in that second vote. He did not name the contractor.

The Trinity River toll road would run along the eastern levee just west of downtown Dallas. DMN file photo.

The state’s transportation department, already cash-strapped and looking to voters for relief, could help pay for a controversial toll road that would run along the east levee of the Trinity River.

Michael Morris, the transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, said the Texas Department of Transportation is among a cadre of public agencies trying to figure out how to fund the road. He said that group includes his organization, Dallas City Hall and the North Texas Tollway Authority.

A member of the Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees TxDOT, said helping fund the project would be “daunting” given other transportation needs in Dallas. But transportation commissioner Victor Vandergriff also said it’s not outside the realm of possibilities.

“Never say never, but that would be a challenge,” Vandergriff said.

TxDOT’s involvement could move the long-delayed and consistently divisive project closer to completion if the NTTA and the city can’t come up with the money needed to build it. So far, a source for the bulk of construction costs hasn’t been identified. But TxDOT chipping in would also push the project farther, once again, from the narrative city leaders sold to voters who narrowly approved the project seven years ago. The road was portrayed in 2007 as a project that would largely be paid for by the drivers who would eventually use it.

Morris said the city still has some money left from about $78 million earmarked for the road. But that leaves more than $1.4 billion to be secured. NTTA is largely responsible for coming up with the financing once federal approval of the project is received. That’s expected to come later this year.

“We won’t have any specific visibility on funding the project until after it clears the environmental process,” NTTA spokesman Michael Rey said.

And it comes on the eve of a statewide campaign season in which voters will decide whether TxDOT’s expenses should be partially funded by certain energy tax revenues currently being gathered in a ballooning state savings account. None of those new revenues would be allowed to be spent on a project with a tolling component. But that could help TxDOT free up existing revenues to put toward the Trinity — if NTTA says it needs help and state leaders agree to jump in.

“At this particular point, there’s nothing being taken off the table,” Morris said.

Still, TxDOT would have a lot of other planning, political and financial factors to weigh.

“The commission is going to be challenged to devote the kind of expense on that at the expense of other downtown projects,” Vandergriff said.

The westbound side of President George Bush Turnpike at Coit Road photographed July 14, 2011.

The North Texas Tollway Authority this week is launching a survey to gauge drivers’ experiences with the agency. I would love to tell you what it asks, but when I was honest and said I work in media, the survey promptly ended and told me I don’t qualify to answer its questions. But y’all can have a party letting NTTA know what it is and isn’t doing right. The agency says it will use the answers to “inform future customer service and marketing plans.” Oh, and if you take the survey you could win a mini iPad or a $250 toll credit.

Update @7:30 p..m.: One northbound lane is getting through. All southbound lanes still closed. Authorities are investigating the fatal wreck that killed a driver whose southbound pickup collided with drilling rig arm hanging over the median barrier after the northbound truck carrying it had a tire blow out.

Update @5:10 p.m.:A pickup driver died in the accident that has the DNT closed this evening. From DPS Sgt. Lonny Haschel:

At approximately 3:30 PM DPS Highway Patrol Troopers were called to a crash on the Dallas North Tollway southbound at Frankford Road. A triple axel truck with a drilling rig mounted on its bed was traveling south in the center lane. The truck had a tire blowout and was pulled to the left lane. The drilling rig arm on the back of the truck then shifted and was hanging over the northbound lanes of the Dallas North Tollway . A pickup traveling north in the left lane of the Dallas North Tollway then struck the drilling arm killing the driver. The driver of the drilling rig was not injured.
All north and southbound lanes of the Dallas North Tollway are currently closed. Motorists are encouraged to find an alternate route. The crash investigation and roadway cleanup will take some time to complete

Original post @4:40 p..m.: The Dallas North Tollway is shut down near Frankford Road in Far North Dallas due to an accident. This will undoubtedly snarl traffic across that area this evening. Drivers already on the tollway are being forced to exit Frankford Road. If you need to get north or south, you’re gonna want to try an alternate route.

Traffic Update: Motorists are now being directed to exit Frankford Road in both directions. Drivers should expect delays.